The invention relates to the application of population statistics to the management of individual devices within a population of devices.
It is common for various types of devices to have local diagnostics embedded within them to assist in the servicing and repair of the devices. Generally, of these diagnostics require onsite support. Moreover, diagnostics may also be more tailored to individual modules within the devices. For example, a marking device exemplifies a modular device that may further include several modular, or swappable, components that enable an operator to reconfigure the device in order to meet requirements of a particular job. In many like devices, modularity permits customization or upgrading by adding and/or swapping one or more modules. To assist in maintenance, a multi-modular device often detects and stores information indicative of historical performance information of the respective modules onsite. Such data logs, or local data diagnostics, are generally examined locally to help technicians determine what, if any, corrective or maintenance action should be taken to maintain error-free operation of the device.
Some systems use telephone lines for transmitting data originating from such electronic system to a remote location. This remote location processes the information received from the electronic system for determining a failure diagnosis of a given electronic system. For example, some existing systems use networks for failure prediction where their diagnosis is based on querying data in the form of a network device management information base. Other systems perform remote diagnosis by collecting information from the managed device via a network in response to specific commands.
Alternatively, a plurality of electronic systems can be connected to a diagnostic server that receives data from the one or more electronic systems. This data can be as rudimentary as machine operational status to highly complex data that could, for example, indicate a particular component failure or be used for future failure prediction analyses, or for scheduling of routine maintenance. Also, the data could be as basic as a single component's on-off data, to system level measurement data, such data being collected in several different operational modes of the device, such as normal, failed, diagnostic, limp-along, or the like. This data allows for the determination of system faults and provides for the initialization of corrective or repair action.